Rosalind and the Masks in Shakespeares As You Like It :: Shakespeare As You Like It Essays

Rosalind and the Masks In this essay I would like to focus on Rosalinds - or rather Ganymedes - preoccupation with the outward-bound show of things. Whether this is a entrust of her cross-dressing, the reason for the same, or the playwrights way of revealing his presence is not as yet clear to me, but Rosalinds constant insistence on the truth of masks and on the other hand her readiness to doubt this same truth fascinates me. When she decides to dress up as a boy, Rosalind seems to think a mannish outside adequate to convince the world at large (I.iii.111-118). She is more than common tall and therefore all she needs is a gallant curtle-axe, a boar impale and a swashing and a martial outside to hide her feminine anxiousness. Taking it for granted that noone will have the hunch to look beyond her male costume, she reasons that since funky men are able to hide these feminine qualities, she should be able to pass off as a man, simply by behaving mannishly. Being so totally depen dent on her own disguise not being found out, it is funny how she proceeds to doubt anyone who does not put on an outward show fitting to their claims to feeling. The first to be put on the stand in this fashion is Orlando. As Ganymede Rosalind refuses to accept Orlandos claim to being the desperate root of the erotic love-verses (s)he has found hanging on the trees on the grounds that he has no visible marks of love upon him. A lean cheek, which you have not a blue eye and sunken, which you have not an unquestionable spirit, which you have not a beard neglected, which you have not (...) Then your hose should be ungartered, your toughie unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and everything about you demonstrating careless desolation. (III.ii.363-371) He is, in other words, not exactly the picture of the despairing suitor. Neither does Jaques measure up to Rosalinds expectations of the grief traveller. She greets him with a they say you are (IV.i.3), and sends him o ff with the order of Look you lisp, and wear strange suits disable all the benefits of your own country be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making that countenance you are or I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola.